“Powers?”
“You may find that times when you feel most alone, when you need to concentrate on happy things, the magic inside the ink will help you. It may lead you.”
“Lead me?”
“It takes time to get used to,” Rebecca said, “and the energy isn’t apparent to everyone. With you, I think the energy will be not just apparent, but obvious.”
Char had no idea what the priestess was talking about. She kind of understood why Sheriff Huber gave the woman room. She was a bit more than slightly odd. “Thank you for the tattoo. It’s beautiful.”
“I am going to bandage it for now. I am leaving you with some ointment. You apply it a few times a day. Do your best to keep it clean. This is blessed ink, so I know you will not need to worry about it getting infected.”
“Maybe we’ll see each other again someday,” Char said, purposefully not saying when she got out of prison. Because it wouldn’t be in three years, and once she was out, there was no way she was coming back, not even to visit with the priestess.
Chapter 24
Sheriff Gus Huber and Deputy Chris Olek stood inside the holding cell with Char.
“Turn around and place your hands behind your back, please,” Olek said.
The cuffs rolled over her wrists and snapped into place, locking.
“You do what’s asked of you, stay out of other people’s business and listen to the warden and his guards, and your time down there will fly by,” Huber said.
Down there? “Where is the prison? I didn’t see one when we walked around town that one day I spent as a free person here.”
“Be there soon enough,” Huber said.
“This it? The two of you taking me?” She said, as they led her out of the cell and toward a door to the back of the City Hall building.
“Deputy Olek could have handled it on his own. I hope you don’t mind that I am here,” Huber said.
Char had secretly wished Ben had come, too. She hated that she felt that way. She was stronger than that, and he didn’t deserve her attention. “If I make a break for it?”
“We’ll be forced to shoot you.”
She shrugged. “Might be the better alternative.”
“Three years is the sentence. You be good, you could be out in a year and a half,” Huber said.
“Be good?” She repeated what the sheriff said just to see if it still sounded as absurd. It did. “Yes, sir. I’ll behave.”
“An attitude is not going to help you,” Huber said.
“No? That’s too bad. An attitude is about the only thing Arcadia hasn’t stolen from me,” she said.
“When you get to The Cog, you might change your mind,” Olek said.
He walked behind Char. She couldn’t see his face, but she imagined a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. She stopped walking, and threw her head back.
The crunch made a distinct sound.
“Son of a bitch. She broke my nose, sheriff,” Olek said.
Huber grabbed Char’s arm with one hand, and backhanded her across the face with the other. She fell to the floor.
Olek stepped forward and kicked Char in the ribs.
“Enough, Olek,” Huber said.
“But my nose,” he said.
Char saw blood spill from between fingers as his hand cupped his face.
“Why do you have to make this difficult, McKinney?” Huber said. “Olek, go see Dr. Debes. I’ll take the prisoner myself and check up on you when I get back. Charlene, get up. Come on, now. Get on your feet.”
“Yeah, alright,” Olek said, stepped forward again, and kicked Char in the side. She grunted and rolled over. “I’ll see ya back at the office, I guess.”
Huber bent down and helped Char to her feet. “I thought he might do that. I told you to get up,” he said.
“Very thoughtful,” she said.
“Don’t turn this on me. You broke his nose. You can hate me, hate Arcadia, but it’s not a bad place. When you were in the wild, you had to do what needed to be done to survive. I get that. This is a civilized town, McKinney. I warned the mayor about letting people from outside in. Everyone else here is living a pretty good, if not simplistic life. No one is bothering them. But they aren’t killing people, either.”
“Broadhurst pulled a gun on us.”
“I’m not going to re-argue your case.”
As they started to walk down the street, Char said, “You have a car or are we walking there?”
“You see any cars?” Huber had her by the arm, staying a safe distance to her left.
She did not like the idea of being paraded around.
“Remember how you and your friends asked the mayor about the power in Arcadia?” Huber said. When Char kept quiet, he continued. “The prison is called The Cog. It’s where we get the power. It’s down in the bowels of a mineshaft. There are multiple generators. They operate on a combination of converted garbage, the heat from the earth, which is called geothermal power, and manpower. I don’t know all the scientific shit, but it comes down to kilowatts if I’m not mistaken. We’ve got a gifted engineer who designed, built, and runs this thing twenty-four seven. As his reward, he’s also the prison warden.”
“So it’s slave labor,” Char said.
“It is prison labor.”
“In a mine shaft,” she said.
“One way in and out,” he said, as if he’d read her thoughts of escape and wanted to thwart them on the spot.
“Sounds claustrophobic,” she said.
“It sure as hell is,” he said.
# # #
On the edge of town was a hole in a mountain. The wall surrounding Arcadia was built around it. Two prison guards with rifles stood by the entrance.
“You’re shitting me,” Char said.
“You think I was kidding?”
“Kind of, yeah,” she said.
“This is my last attempt at helping you. Do as you’re told. Keep your nose down, and fly under the radar. What’s below is like no prison you’ve ever seen before,” the sheriff said. He greeted the guards with a nod.
“How big is this prison?” she said.
“Huge.”
Char sighed. “I meant how many prisoners?”
“Prisoners? With you, fifteen.”
“Fifteen? You have fifteen people running enough power to generators to supply this town with electricity?”
“Yes, but not exactly.”
“Not exactly, what?”
“Those questions I will leave for the warden to answer.” Huber didn’t laugh, and he didn’t smile. He just led her forward by the arm.
They entered the cave. It is what it was. A cave entrance. The sunlight did not penetrate even ten feet into the cave. The darkness would have been complete if not for a string of lights not much brighter than Christmas tree decorations strung along the ceiling.
They stopped at a gated cube.
“What’s this?” Char said.
“Your ride down to The Cog,” he said.
Char looked back over her shoulder. She could not see the cave entrance. She could barely make out the lights that were not immediately in front of her. If the sheriff was telling the truth about only one way in or out, and that one way being this elevator, she began to doubt her plan of escaping.
She didn’t want to give up on the idea already, but as they stepped into the car and it slowly descended into sparse areas of complete darkness and passing areas of light, she felt hope slip away.
PART III
The Cog
Chapter 25
The elevator was a wooden plank platform with a mesh cage. It rattled as it descended. The view was of silt, clay, and grey rock with embedded crystals on all four sides.
“Just breathe easy,” Sheriff Huber said. He stood stiffly, with one hand on the butt of his revolver and the other on the end of his long handled D-battery flashlight.
“What’s that smell?”
“The shiny rock is called Rhyolite. What you are smelling is sulfur.”
“Are we safe down here? I mean, breathing that in?”
“You will be given P.P.E.s once you get situated,” Huber said.
“Yeah, I have no idea what that is.”
“Personal Protective Equipment. A mask, gloves, and a prison uniform that will keep you safe from exposure to the elements.”
“Mask?”
“A full face piece respirator.” The sheriff mimicked putting on a mask. “They have acid gas cartridges that keep you from breathing in toxins. You’ll be safe.”
“Has anyone sentenced ever been released from this prison, yet?” she said.
Huber shook his head. “Not yet. No.”
She couldn’t think about that. Not now. To survive she shew she’d need to prepare mentally. Positive thoughts. “How far down are we going?”
“About two hundred feet.”
Char sucked in a deep breath.
“Are you okay?”
She waved a hand in front of her face. “I might be hyperventilating.”
“Breathe slowly, in and out. Nice and easy.” The sheriff put hands on her shoulders.
The elevator rattled and shook.
“We’re at the bottom,” the sheriff said.
She sensed a change in his personality. He didn’t seem like the bad guy she’d thought. “I’ll be okay.”
The elevator stopped. A guard stood in front of them. He held a rifle across his chest. His face was hidden behind the reflection in the face piece of his mask. The mask had a respirator cartridge on either side of his covered mouth and she could hear him breathing. He sounded a lot like Darth Vader.
“That’s what I’ll be wearing?” she said.
“That’s what you will be wearing. Are you ready?”
The elevator gate rose and they stepped off the elevator. Lights lit the tunnel ahead.
“I guess I’m as ready as I ever will be.” She wasn’t ready at all.
“Take her to the warden, Officer.”
“Wait,” Char said. “You’re not coming with me?”
“This is where we part. I do wish you the best of luck. Try to remember everything I told you, and you’ll be okay.”
She didn’t want him to go. “Thank you, I will.”
“I’ll see you soon, okay?”
She didn’t trust herself to speak. She just nodded.
# # #
“My name is George Hermann. This is my facility, my institution. It is a prison, yes. We have prisoners and armed guards. There is one way in, and the only way out is when you’ve completed your sentence, but the Cog is more than a prison. If you take any pride in yourself, you will understand that what we do down here is even more important than reformation. We supply more than just a service to the community of Arcadia. The Cog is the heart of Arcadia and possibly its brain.”
Char sat at desk across from Hermann; the guard with the gun stood behind her. The framed degrees from M.I.T. and Stanford were hung on the wall behind Hermann’s head and didn’t impress her. She didn’t think it was possible, but she missed Sheriff Huber. Hermann was not what she’d expected. When she thought of a warden she pictured a crotchety old man in a dark suit, with grey hair. Hermann couldn’t yet be thirty. He had a head of messy black hair. He wore glasses with black frames and lenses so thick his eyes looked twice as large as normal behind the prescription glass.
“While you are here you won’t just spend time wasting away in a cell. Your work will be meaningful. You will be contributing, working to ensure that power and electricity is supplied to the town,” Hermann said.
“How does that work?”
Hermann stared at Char for a long minute. “I do not remember you asking for permission to talk, nor do I recall asking you a question. You are new. I will let it slide this once. The Cog is successful because we run on policy and procedures. Rules. You’ve just learned one of them. And, mind you, it is an important one. We don’t tolerate much of anything other than a hard work ethic down here. Want your time with us to be painless, then follow the rules.”
Char wanted to ask where to get a copy of the rules, but didn’t. It would have been a sarcastic question that she was confident the warden would not appreciate.
“You are fed two meals. Breakfast and dinner. You begin work after breakfast, and finish around nine at night. When we are done here you will be fitted with the equipment needed to live down in this environment. You get one set. So take care of it. You will then be shown to your own personal cell. Today is your one and only day off, enjoy it. Tomorrow morning at six you will meet your foreman, be given your job assignment, and begin the labor portion of your sentence. And, Ms. McKinney, you want to hope that you and I never have to meet again.”
There was no mistaking the threat in his tone of voice. She didn’t even nod in understanding. For an engineer assigned to warden a prison, he was well suited for the position. The little creep was intimidating. He shouldn’t be. That was why it bothered her so much.
# # #
Char thought about stirring up some banter with the masked guard escorting her from the warden’s office, but decided against it. It made more sense to keep her mouth shut. She’d now been given the same advice by two people basically to fly under the radar. It was odd, but part of her felt relieved. She wasn’t going to have to deal with the infected. The idea of living in a locked cell was somewhat attractive. She’d be able to sleep at night without keeping one eye open. She really couldn’t remember the last time that had happened. Working every day might be just as Hermann indicated, rewarding; it might also keep her so occupied that she didn’t have time to think about Tony, and Sam, and Grace. She would be kept so busy and exhausted that her mind might vacation from thoughts about her father, and brother. No one would be forgotten, but a break was needed. The last three years had been nothing short of hell.
Once they exited the main office area, Char was able to take in more of the mine. In a way, it was as she expected. The carved out caverns were chiseled rock. There were several guards with guns. They all resembled one another. There was no way to tell them apart. They were clad in black and masks and looked like Storm Troopers.
There were slotted metal walkways with guardrails. Char looked down and saw that the pit seemed bottomless. Powerful lights were strung up along the jagged ceiling. The odor of sulfur became stronger with each step taken. It assaulted her nostrils. Her nose kept twitching.
“I don’t see the prison cells,” she said.
“We’re still in the administrative area of the prison,” the guard said. His breathing heavy in and out while taking breaths.
Char had not expected him to reply. He did not remind her of a person in his uniform. Part of her had even considered him more of a robot.
Along the walls were mesh-metal cages. They stopped at the first one.
“We are going to fit you with a mask first,” he said. He reached out and opened the metal door. They entered the room. Inside were totes. The guard looked at her face and the sides of her head. “Have a seat.”
He opened a tote labeled small and removed two masks. From another tote he produced two round, cylindrical canisters.
“What are those?” she said.
“These connect to the mask.” He pointed to the ones on his. “They filter the air from lethal toxins. We will give you fresh canisters each morning.”
“They last that long?”
He didn’t answer, but instead screwed them in place on one of the masks. “Lean forward.”
He fit the mask over her face and fastened the straps tight on the back of her head.
“That kind of hurts,” she said.
“It is important that the mask seals to your face. Otherwise, there is no reason to wear one. You will get used to wearing this, trust me,” the guard said. “Breath normally for me.”
She breathed in and out. Now she sounded like the daughter of Vader. She wondered when she’d get a lightsaber.
The guard put the second mask back in the tote. He wrote something on a clipboard. “Okay. We’ll get you gloves and a prison uniform.”
She wondered what color the jumpsuits would be. Blue or orange. It could be worse, she could be forced to pick trash up along the side of the highway.
In the next cage was where gloves were kept. The guard manipulated a tote and handed her a pair. They were suede, thick, and a little big on her hands. Her father had always claimed she’d play piano. “With long slender fingers like that, I can’t imagine you
not
playing piano,” he always said.
“They’re kinda big,” she said.
“Smallest we have.” That ended that part of the conversation.
They stopped at the third, fourth, and fifth cages. The prison clothing was not what she’d expected. She was given three white tank tops, three pairs of black jeans and a heavy, black, Carhartt jacket. “This is what the prisoners wear?”
“They are for your protection,” the guard said.
Char cocked an eyebrow. She again wondered about the work. What exactly would she be doing, and just how dangerous was it?
“Change into the clothing,” the guard said.
“What, now?” Char said. She looked around. They were in the fifth cage. There were other guards on the metal sidewalks, but not near them. Anyone could see into the cages. They were more like chain link fence, the mesh was that open.
“You can’t go into the prison in your street clothing. We’ll place them in plastic and into a tote in the next cage. They’ll be safe there and returned to you when you are released in three years.”
“What about some privacy?”
“You gave up your right to privacy when you broke the law. Strip out of the street clothes and put on the assigned prison garb. I will not ask again,” he said.
Char stood still. She heard just the two of them breathing inside their masks. She held the clothing she’d been given tight to her body. She felt dirty. Embarrassed. Violated.
He wasn’t going to ask again.
There was no other choice.
She set the items down on a chair.
The guard just stared at her. His breath slightly fogged up the lower portion of the plastic faceplate and then disappeared. Then fogged up and cleared.
She undid her pants and slid them off. It was slow and humiliating. Goosebumps covered her thighs. Standing stooped over, she reached for the black jeans and quickly stuck her legs in. She pulled the pants up, zipped and buttoned them. She took off her shirt and kept one arm across her chest. The moment it took to slide the tank top over her head was the worst. She felt vulnerable, and could not stop her body from shaking. She knew he was staring at her breasts and hated that her nipples were erect.
It was over.
It felt like it lasted longer than a minute or two.
She grabbed the jacket, drove her arms into the sleeves, and immediately zipped it up. She put the gloves on last. Under all her new gear, she still felt naked.
“Grab your things. We’ll secure them in a tote,” the guard said. His tone of voice hadn’t changed.
Char’s face felt hot. She knew tears brimmed along her lower eyelids.
Fuck sleep. She no longer felt safe. She no longer thought being down here could be a good idea. She wanted to get out of here. If she had to stay a full day, it would be a full day too long.